Second City

For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries the second city in the UK was commonly understood to be Glasgow. There’s nothing terribly contentious or hard to understand about this fact, its status was achieved by virtue of the size of its population. Glasgow was the second most populous city in the UK and therefore the second city. Through boundary changes and population shifts it has now lost that status. Birmingham however has for much of the 20th century and from 2006 had a population of over one million and remains our second most populous city in England and the UK. Indeed if one was to look at a map, one would find only one City whose location is marked by a solid black circle, the map symbol widely used to indicate those cities of significance with over one million inhabitants and that is Birmingham.
That ought to be the end of the debate, Birmingham is not only bigger than Manchester, it is MUCH bigger than Manchester but our friends in the north always seem to ignore this simple, widely understood, fact-based analysis in favour of more subjective, contentious criteria – Pop Stars and Wine bars.

Here are some simple facts:
The ten largest Cities in England in order of size are;
1. London
2. Birmingham
3. Leeds
4. Sheffield
5. Bradford
6. Liverpool
7. Manchester
8. Bristol
9. Wakefield
10. Coventry

On this evidence alone Manchester have a tenuous claim to third place, let alone second.


Whilst it’s true that Birmingham does not have an illustrious start to life, this could also be said of most of our major industrial cities, Manchester included. The strength and success of these cities lie in thier expansion throughout the Industrial Revolution and here, Birmingham – Workshop of the World, City of a thousand trades, Powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution has a history and heritage second to none. Birmingham may not have it’s equivalent Roman name but then if Manchester was known as Mamucium, meaning breast-like hill, I’m not sure that’s a disadvantage. My goodness, Birmingham has its knockers, it’s certainly made them by the thousand in it’s numerous factories but at least it doesn’t look like one.

When it comes to industry, innovation and invention, Birmingham certainly has few peers and my Manc friend is not telling the whole story when he suggests that custard and Brylcream are it’s only inventions:

• Fredrick Lanchester and his brother built the first petrol car in Birmingham He also invented the accelerator pedal, detachable wire wheels, stamped steel pistons, piston rings, hollow connecting rods, the torsional vibration damper, and the harmonic balancer.
• The X-Ray was invented in Birmingham
• The world’s first pneumatic tyre factory was situated in Birmingham.
• Where would we be without Cotton Wool? – Invented in Birmingham
• Now I know Mancs like their bling so I’m sure they’ll be interested to know that One third of all the Jewellery manufactured in the UK comes from Birmingham.
• Hardly surprising then that Birmingham’s assay office is the largest in the world.

These are only a few of Birmingham’s achievements but the most telling of all facts regarding Birmingham’s proud industrial heritage is that Birmingham's contribution to the war effort was unsurpassed by any other city. Over half of all the armament used in World War 2 were made by one company, the mighty BSA and the Castle Bromwich factory of Morris Motors and Vickers built more Spitfires than all of the other UK factories combined. Needless to say, those proud, industrious Brummies paid a huge price and many of Birmingham’s fine Victorian buildings were lost to German air-raids. Perhaps those who would criticise Birmingham’s architecture, built in the aftermath to fill the ravaged, war-torn landscape would do well to remember that terrible price, paid willingly by the proud inhabitants of Britain’s second city.

My friend makes mention of an article in The Times by Sathnam Sanghera who is clearly displaying that ‘chip on your shoulder’ mentality that only inhabitants from a city’s less significant and overshadowed neighbouring towns possess. In this instance Wolverhampton.

I respectfully suggest that Sathnam Sanghera is disingenuous. When one examines his article, he states that Birmingham’s claim to be second city is fairly recent and that previously the title has been attached to Glasgow and Dublin – he’s right and in each case; the title was based on the respective populations of the Cities in question being second to London as is now the case with Birmingham. He also points out that the West Midlands conurbation and the Greater Manchester urban area have similar populations. – He’s right again but he neglects to mention that the West Midlands conurbation (population 2,284,093) is still larger than Greater Manchester (population 2,240,230) And whilst downgrading the value of Birmingham’s Symphony Orchestra, Opera and Ballet companies, he informs us that Manchester is popular with Chief Executives because of the availability of office space and car parks. I do sympathise with the columnist’s shopping experience in the interior of The Selfridges Building, in common with all of the ubiquitous shopping malls throughout England, it is bland and sterile but is that really any different from Manchester’s Arndale centre? More to the point, is this really a way to establish Second City status?

Now I’ll not bore the reader by trading tit-for-tat names with the Original Poster’s list of Manchester luminaries (who can compete with those cultural giants, Herman’s Hermits and The Ting Tings) Nor will I dwell too long on the fact that as soon as Manchester’s own Liam and Noel Gallagher made it big, such was the depth of feeling for their beloved city that they cleared off to live in London. It is however interesting to note that almost certainly the only thing that Ryan Giggs and David Lloyd-George have in common apart from their birthplace is that they both chose Wales as their home. David Lloyd-George is at least an important name on the list but readers will note that one of the more significant influences on his life was made by Joseph Chamberlain, radical, President of the board of Trade, One of the most important British politicians of the late 19th century and early 20th century, a successful business man who’s family firm was one of the leading manufacturers in Birmingham, he was also Lord Mayor of Birmingham and of course father of Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister and born in Birmingham.


One has to concede that in terms of footballing success, few cities (with the obvious exception of Liverpool) can boast the success and honours of Manchester United. Those ‘sons of Manchester’ in their distinctive red strip have walked out on the hallowed turf at Wembley and have lifted the FA trophy many times. Perhaps it should be noted though, as they press their lips to that most desirable of football prizes that it was designed and manufactured, where else, but in Birmingham.

So in conclusion, to those pretenders who try to claim second city status I say:
Kiss Our Cup.